Stupid mistakes!!!!

WindyhillBSN · Oct 19, 2008

I really identify with this post. I just got my license a month ago, I am so hard on myself when I make a mistake like not writing a order down in the TAR which I do before I really screw anything up or talking to a Dr and why I do this I don't know, I forget to grab the MAR. Thank goodness the facility Dr is nice & understanding most of the time. When I ask this one nurse on my shift a question she looks at me like an idiot. Mostly all the nurses I work with are very helpful. I was going end the shift last week & never come back, because I feel like an incompetent fool, my ADON threatened me with a fleets. She told me to get over this it's going to take a least a year before I feel comfortable in these new nurse shoes. She tells me I expect perfection from myself, and I'm not going to get it so knock it off. I know my stuff but in clinicals there was always an instructor there, I did my first foley & this is stupid but I kinda freaked when I had to set it all up, it doesn't come together like the one in the lab supplies we bought. Man I feel like a loser, & most people reading this will think so too.

No, not at all, it took me 40 min. 2 put in a foley a couple of nights ago. :bluecry1:

Kedarradar · Oct 21, 2008

As far as the "witch hunt" goes, I remember my first nursing job. It was actually pre-strike at this big teaching hospital and I remember missing giving this rescue drug, leucovorin (oncology unit), which basically rescues the body from the chemo previously administered so there is no organ damage. I simply did not know what the drug was and was not cued up to it's importance among all the other very important million tasks I had to do and somehow missed it in my overwhelmed state. When you're new, I think you have a harder time prioritizing because your brain isn't sure when to freak out and when not to freak out, so it's freaking out all the time (I found this very tiring as well, the anxiety is very draining in and of itself). When my preceptor discovered I'd missed the drug she said I should've known what it was and how important it is because the importance had been written somewhere in my orientation booklet (ok my orientation booklet was about a 1/2 foot deep of new information). I remember feeling terriable, fessing up to the pharmacists with a shaking voice, and the doctor (some big whig dude pioneering some blood brain barrier treatements) and feeling like the loser of my generation. I made a couple more errors (not so serious) and after reporting myself dutifully, was brought into the nurse managers office and two other nurses followed and shut the door. They looked very worried and anxious and this worried me and made me even more anxious than I already was. My manager told me no more med errors would be allowed and that I was on probation.

I went home and thought about it for a couple days and unlike my usual tenacious self, I called them up and told them I was resigning. I didn't have another job (also unlike my usual behavior), but by the next month I got a new job that wasn't nights or 12 hour shifts, but an evening shift 8 hour job at a hospital in town that at the time seemed less flashy, but much more welcoming and interestingly enough, is now a magnet hospital. I was actually told in my interview at the new hospital that "nurses eat their young" and that that was probably what was about to happen to me. The new job was still hard, no doubt, but everyone was so much more supportive and more kind and nurturing and guess what? I learned more. I have since heard that "it takes a village to raise a child" often referring to a new nurse as well. If you get the feeling they're trying to eat you alive, you may be right. Don't be afraid to look for a better learning environment. I may have been able to tough out the other job, but it wouldn't have been anywhere near as supportive and helpful as the second job I found. I think that it really pays to do your own personal studying, if for no one else, it's good for the patients and your own confidence and well being at work. Knowledge is power. But put a limit on it, you can only do learn so much, so fast and you are only one person. I wish I had done that very thing more because over the years all that self teaching adds up to a lot better patient care. I would also highly recommend 8 hour shifts for the new grad, evenings in fact. It makes the shock more gentle on the body and the mind and the heart when it's already being challenged with a plethora of new information and skills and crotchety old nurses that are injured by their own painful experiences. Once you've gotten past that first 6 months or year or so, things get easier. Get enough exercise and beauty in your life. I remember becoming very depressed after taking care a many dying cancer patients and becoming obsessed with death. I joined this mountain climbing club and on my days off starting going outside a lot and I remember a lot of the depression lifted and I think it was the beauty of the forest that was very healing as well as having a mental break from things so serious. The concept of "art saves lives" , I found, rings so, so true.

Anyway, just trying to encourage a little, remembering my own painful new experience.

mom2mands · Oct 22, 2008

I can totally relate to what you said about feeling stupid. I started working on a OBGYN unit (which includes L&D, Postpartum, and Nursey) in a small community hospital and it seems like every day I work I do something wrong, and there is no positive feedback. It feels like my orientation so far has been very disjointed (we have been very busy) and everything is different from any clinical I had in nursing school, e.g. all the nurses notes are computerized and the MARs on paper only.

Today was the worst --I couldn't insert a foley (again, haven't been able to since I started working) and then I left the keys to the narcotic cabinet on the counter by the cabinet instead of putting them back in my pocket, and didn't remember before it was time to pass them off to night shift. True, I've never been anywhere else that used keys rather than a code or fingerprint but still, I've been upset since I left work. I feel like a total failure and can't figure out what's going on (why I keep screwing up)

INwannaB · Oct 25, 2008

Me too.....I feel like a total failure and so incompetent. The other day, I got confused when someone hand wrote a medication on a computer generated MAR and failed to time the medication so I didn't give it at all. My preceptor told me I should have known better even though I have never seen this before. When I asked how I would have known, she said "you just need to know" and stormed out of the room to report the incident to the nurse manager. Now I am wondering......what else do I "just need to know" that I don't know? New things come up every day and if you haven't experienced them before, how is it that we know what to do?

There are so many friggen fires to put out that one does not have time to think. Someone PLEASE tell me this gets better!!!!!!

PopeJane3rd · Oct 25, 2008

You may have to take your time a bit and think before you act. It takes practice but is very do-able. These types of mistakes can have devastating consequences: loss of job, malpractice actions, bad performance reviews, etc.

I'm not a nurse, but when you are drawing up medicines, can't you draw up one at a time? Or place the syringe with its respective medication and put a few inches away from other meds given?

marilynmom, LPN, NP · Oct 29, 2008

You may have to take your time a bit and think before you act. It takes practice but is very do-able. These types of mistakes can have devastating consequences: loss of job, malpractice actions, bad performance reviews, etc.
I'm not a nurse, but when you are drawing up medicines, can't you draw up one at a time? Or place the syringe with its respective medication and put a few inches away from other meds given?

I'll keep my mouth shut with this post by a non-nurse

marilynmom, LPN, NP · Oct 29, 2008

I feel so bad today. The past two nights I have worked in the ED and have been so nervous! On Monday night we had a lady to come in with an acute MI. The doctor ordered 50mg of Demerol with 25mg of Phenergan. Of course I always know to dilute Phenergan, but what do you think I did? I gave them both together and didn't dilute it whatsoever. I didn't realize what I had done until after the fact. The patient must have been in so much pain with the MI she didn't feel the Phenergan. Good thing is she's okay now... Boy I feel so STUPID!!!!!
On Tuesday night we had a manic patient who the doctor ordered Haldol and Vistiril for. I drew both up in seperate syringes, and then Dr. decides to only give Vistiril. Do you think that I knew which was which??? Of course not. Had to start all over wasting the Vistiril and Haldol. The doctor just looked at me like I was an incompetent idiot. I feel that way 2. This is not getting any better.

Don't be so hard on yourself please! We all make mistakes and the good thing about mistakes is that you learn from them :) I always learn best from the mistakes I've made in life. We have ALL made mistakes, I know I sure have, and I learned from them. We can't live a life without mistakes (because that would make us perfect and no one is perfect).

joseash · Oct 31, 2008

Me too.....I feel like a total failure and so incompetent. The other day, I got confused when someone hand wrote a medication on a computer generated MAR and failed to time the medication so I didn't give it at all. My preceptor told me I should have known better even though I have never seen this before. When I asked how I would have known, she said "you just need to know" and stormed out of the room to report the incident to the nurse manager. Now I am wondering......what else do I "just need to know" that I don't know? New things come up every day and if you haven't experienced them before, how is it that we know what to do?
There are so many friggen fires to put out that one does not have time to think. Someone PLEASE tell me this gets better!!!!!!

Do you have to chart meds in the computer when given? I usually look at my MAR printout and write med times on the top front of my worklist. Then I also see what the computer has scheduled for me to chart on during my shift. That way anything new should appear in the computer cueing me in. But your system may not work this way.........

Yes, it does get better. :bugeyes: Things will slowly start coming together and suddenly you will realize that you "just know things." Of course one day something will pop up that you have no clue about which may totally shatter your confidence. This is normal - not even the most experienced nurse knows it all - but don't let it ruin your day. You just need to take a deep breath and remind yourself of how many things you DO know. It is way more than you are giving yourself credit for, I assure you.

INwannaB · Oct 31, 2008

Do you have to chart meds in the computer when given? I usually look at my MAR printout and write med times on the top front of my worklist. Then I also see what the computer has scheduled for me to chart on during my shift. That way anything new should appear in the computer cueing me in. But your system may not work this way.........
Yes, it does get better. Things will slowly start coming together and suddenly you will realize that you "just know things." Of course one day something will pop up that you have no clue about which may totally shatter your confidence. This is normal - not even the most experienced nurse knows it all - but don't let it ruin your day. You just need to take a deep breath and remind yourself of how many things you DO know. It is way more than you are giving yourself credit for, I assure you.

We have computer MARS but when you hand write a medication on the paper MAR (that was given over the phone) you are suppose to time them until the next MAR is printed. Well, someone wrote the med order and didn't write in a time so I forgot to give it. We don't have to chart the meds in the computer. I wish we did, then I wouldn't have missed it. By 2009 we will have the computer system where you have to scan the meds and the patient and the computer will tell you if you missed a med.....no doubt the system is intended for dummies like me.

Sonjailana · Nov 2, 2008

Don't feel bad! My mistake as of late is throwing away a vicodin in the med room..pretty embarrassing to explain that one to my charge nurse!